Qualcomm Expected to Unveil New Snapdragon Wear SoC for Smartwatches on September 10

Qualcomm has reportedly sent out invites for an event scheduled for September 10 where announcements related to smartwatches are expected. According to the invite, the event to be held in San Francisco will be all about watches, meaning you should get ready for a new SoC for wearables to be launched. Thus, it appears that over two years after bringing the Snapdragon Wear 2100 SoC for Android Wear smartwatches, Qualcomm is back in the headlines for its new silicon. Earlier in May, Google and Qualcomm had confirmed that a new SoC design for wearable devices was in the works. But, Qualcomm’s invite suggests that the successor Snapdragon Wear 2100 may finally get unveiled next month.

From the poster shared by some Twitter users, it is clear that Qualcomm is teasing something related to smartwatches, and the product that is highly likely to be announced is a new processor. The Qualcomm invite shows a watch with the clock set to 0910hrs and a caption that read: “It’s time. Set your watches.” It will not be a surprising move by the chipmaker, as Snapdragon Wear 2100 SoC that currently powers most of the Wear OS devices is getting quite old.

The new silicon from Qualcomm is expected to bring several upgraded features for smartwatches running Google’s platform. The company’s Senior Wearables Director Pankaj Kedia had said in a previous report that the third-generation SoCs – after the Snapdragon 400 and Snapdragon 2100 – have been designed from the ground up “for a no-compromises smartwatch experience” and include dedicated chips to enable always-on functionality. He had said that the next platform will be the first with “purpose-built chips”.

It is unclear whether Qualcomm will adhere to the 28nm process that it used with the Snapdragon 2100 back in February 2016. Having said that, the reported development of the new SoC line from Qualcomm could bring some positivity for the Wear OS ecosystem that hasn’t received any major new launches.

Interestingly, Google has long been rumoured to be adding a Pixel-branded smartwatch to its hardware portfolio this Fall. A previous report had suggested that the ‘Pixel Watch’ could come with Snapdragon Wear 3100. The quad-core SoC is said to use the ARM Cortex-A7 and Adreno 304 GPU and it will focus on battery savings.